Metal detectors don’t delay fans at Pittsburgh Pirates’ baseball opener

The security personnel dotted the various lines as patrons waited patiently for the gates at LECOM Park to open.

Season ticket holders for the Pittsburgh Pirates’ spring training games would experience the first change to LECOM Park.

In keeping with Major League Baseball’s best stadium operations practices’ league-wide mandate, the 2017 Grapefruit League season received metal detectors for fans to go through prior to entering a park.

At the grounds formerly known as McKechnie Field, there were no hiccups for Saturday’s opener.

“I’m fortunate that for the last several years, that’s what I did in Pittsburgh,” Pirates senior director of Florida and Dominican Republic operations Jeff Podobnik said. “We’re able to put five walk-throughs at our main gate. We’ve done some extensive training with our staff, and it’s about communication to our friends also.”

In a twist of fate, the first person through the beefed up security measure wasn’t even a Pirates fan.

He wasn’t a fan of the visiting Baltimore Orioles on Saturday’s sunny afternoon, either.

Season ticket holder Gale Kurts is a fan of a Pittsburgh division rival, the St. Louis Cardinals.

He was OK with the metal detection system, where he simply walked through and set his bag off to the side for checking.

“It was alright,” said Kurts, who is from Iowa.

Parrish’s Chip Kuhrts, a Cubs fan and also a season ticket holder, said strange to see the new metal detectors.

“As a season ticket holder, we usually just walk in,” Kuhrts said. “Now? It’s like you’re flying in an airplane. You’ve got to take off your clothes. ... Take off your shoes.”

The process, though, is simpler and that was underscored by how speedy the lines moved Saturday. There weren’t any long delays before the first pitch between the Pirates and Orioles.

Fans can keep most things that aren’t allowed by airport security standards in their pockets or on such as belts, loose change and shoes.

Podobnik said anything larger than a cell phone that’s metal is what gets set aside during the detection process.

“It makes the process of getting in a lot smoother,” Podobnik said.

Last year, a night game pitting the Tampa Bay Rays against the Pirates at the then-McKechnie Field saw an on-field incident when a fan got past security to throw a beer can from the field into the Rays’ visiting dugout to protest their Cuba trip in 2016.

While Podobnik wasn’t in his current role at the time, he said that incident is not related to the metal detection system that MLB installed to go with its best stadium operations practices’ mandate.

“Major League Baseball, their security department is constantly communicating with all the clubs on what the risk level is and the security level,” Podobnik said. “We’re trying to stay on top of where we need to be as an industry from a security operations standpoint. And adding metal detection to the spring training facilities is just that next layer.”

And that new layer is something Pittsburgh native Jack Eichner is fine with.

“I’d rather be safe than sorry,” Eichner said.

This story was originally published February 25, 2017 at 11:48 PM with the headline "Metal detectors don’t delay fans at Pittsburgh Pirates’ baseball opener."